Their Approaches
The white fluorescent light beamed into the white plates and back into their eyes. Alex carved sections out of the breaded chicken as he talked about something from two weeks ago. Three of them sat around an oblong table, with Alex on one side all alone, pushed against a wall with a vintage poster stuck against it.
They picked a table near the corner, though the restaurant was quiet even with a bunch of customers, all seemingly concentrated on their food rather than the small talk. Irene zipped up her teal linen hoodie further up to fight the air-con.
"I would describe it in some other way, I wish I could, but this is the best way I can put it. There was this client I worked with, I think, two weeks ago. Very nice man, physical appearance-wise in his fifties, he wanted a batch of wedding photos with his fiancé twenty years younger than him. I'm in no position to fault him for that, this is only information provided for you to do whatever you please." Alex paused to allow for a small chuckle that illuminated the table.
Kevin turned away to feed himself a few more bites, but maintained focus on the story anyway.
"So I had both future husband-and-wife on the table, standard."
"It was those two!" Irene and Kevin looked at each other in sudden realization.
"You mentioned them to me before."
"Yep. I'll let Alex tell you the rest." Irene laughed and dipped the meat in the gravy.
A bunch of shrill voices argued outside their windows down on the ground. Irene turned and looked, but ignored them anyway.
"They picked the scene, which was a bit of those Classical settings. So we decided on it, arranged a booking, because those required advanced notifications to the property owners. Everything was set up, the downs were paid, and the contracts were signed. So the day was scheduled at two, the wind is mild so it helps with the effects I want to create. There's the pavilion area near the entrance. Owner gave me the keys when I came around half an hour before, so the entire place is mine and I set up the lights and got something in the columns out of the way."
Irene gnawed on a carrot stick while Kevin wiped his mouth over the napkin.
"Two rolled around and they didn't come. Okay, maybe something is tying them up. Two-ten. Same thing. I waited ten more minutes before I called them anyway. I was only, really supposed to do it when it's half an hour, but I called anyway. No answer. I thought that maybe they simply forgot about it and went somewhere else where it wasn’t really convenient to take any calls, or they straight up had an engagement, even when we were holding part of their sums."
"Don't they have to get dressed up?"
"On location. We do it on location, so number one, you don't have to bring anything but your dedication. And two, it could risk getting stained and it won't look good." Alex tore off a bit of what's on his plate and emptied the glass before he carried on while he twirled circles above the mouth of it to signal a fresh one. "So, here I am, sitting on their box of clothes, everything set up, me adjusting the camera and really nothing else to do. And they never came."
"Oh, those people. You must have felt like some time has been wasted."
"First of all, I kept 65% of the down, so it hurts less." The two companions laughed in response. "And second, we don't have to go through those arduous steps after we take the shoot, and the post-interview process and book binding and all that."
"Oh god, I had the exact same experience." Irene pulled at her memories. "Had a few actors up for an audition reel for a project we're doing. Again, there are some that won't show up. We know, and you should be familiar with it, Alex."
Alex nodded though his head is entirely down on his plate since his stomach complained harder.
The noise outside the windows grew in strength.
“There’s this one model where there’s zero— no communication, no details, no updates, no nothing. We tried calling her, and no one answered. So we did the audition anyway. We sat on this long bench at the other end of the room while they took photos and recited a small excerpt from the script. And this girl, called us right in the middle of one of them— So we had to stop the cameras and the actual reading of the script first before we could take the call. This woman started to scream about how she was not being respected when it was her that was insanely late, that’s why we had to make these calls. And we had to shut everything down in respect to whoever was calling in, whether it’s you or some other clerk who requested help in the back room. This woman was angry that we took “eons”— her words, not ours— just to take her calls. We ended up getting so silently flared in the studio we ordered everyone out anyway and the day was a waste.”
"Yeah, I guess." Alex's voice dwelled. He emitted a small laugh and promptly shook his head over it.
"Do we intercept?" Irene said in mild surprise.
“No." Kevin looked at the self-indulged state that Alex was in, and his head turned to a story. “This guy is a legend. I really do have a secret admiration for what he does and that’s why I stuck with him. Here’s a tale.”
“Oh?” Irene was in a middle of a sip of Coke when she was alerted.
“Two years ago, this dude right here had to represent our Tag Team in league. He’s a high roller, so of course all chips are on him and he’s up, and he had to face Cranker Chris from the Sharks on the 19-20 pair. Mind you, this is the first time we had direct head-to-head. I think it was decided by some vote? I’ll find it in my Archives later. Anyway, this is the first time we have done such a thing, and this matchup is decided in a race-to-four, best-of-seven games matchplay round. Alex’s sicker than a dog, this might not occur to you, but at that match, he’s sicker than I’ve ever seen him fall ill. He basically had to be convinced by Angel to even come here and throw in the first place. He loved her so he obliged anyway, even when he can barely hurl a nine-pounder on a board.”
“Aw.” She propped up her head on one of her fists.
“So he went up against him. Cranker Chris threw the last six strikes to beat him by nine in game four to tie it to two-all. And here in Fountain Lanes— you’ve been there a few times— there are these soft, cushy couches behind the approach so they can wait while the other bowled. When Cranker Chris got done with the tenth frame, he looks back at him, Alex is asleep.”
“Is this even allowed?” Irene giggled a little.
“Hold on, it gets better.” Kevin’s smile was apparent. “Cranker Chris goes up and nudges Alex— he’s a nice guy, mind you— and says ‘Bro, bro, wake up!’ Alex gets up gradually, and just blankly stares at him exhausted. ‘Bro, don’t die on me, I’ve been wanting to bowl against you for a good while now.’ So he stands up, walks to the vending machine and pulls out an energy drink, chugs the full thing, comes back to the pair and rolls the next twenty-three out of twenty-four strikes to beat him 4-2. You can only imagine how many more pins he scored in his girl’s heart that day, watching him.”
“Wow, that’s a fantastic story.” Irene sneaked a look at Alex’s reaction. He is still within himself. “‘Don’t die on me!’”
“‘I’ve been wanting to bowl against you for a good while now.’” Kevin followed the impersonation of Cranker Chris. “When we are set to go home that day, I volunteered to carry the winner on my back so Angel doesn’t have to carry both her admiration and him at the same time.”
She broke the air with another bout of giggling.
“Took them back to Alex’s house. I sat around for half an hour since Angel insisted that I stick around as well. Watched her tend to basically everything like she’s his Luna the butler. Fed him soup when he’s hungry, even when he coughed and didn’t have any napkins so it was projectile viruses, she just kept going. When he had difficulty swallowing his prescription, she bit them apart for him. She basically sat on a chair, doing nothing but look over him for the entire time I’m there. Yes, she gave me a glass of water to send me on my way, but that was… memorable.”
Alex’s brief laughter sounded again, albeit much louder after the story was told. Kevin shut his eyes, and his eyebrows twitched, digging through the storage systems rather frantically.
“There we go.” Kevin ran through the recording and opened his eyes again.
Alex stopped his mouth, silently he finished off his plate before he tried to socialize again.
“I absolutely have to apologize for what just happened. It was a string—“ His wrist shook slightly and he peered into the notification. “I’m truly sorry, it was a bit irresponsible of me—“
“No, no, Alex.” Irene held out her hand to stop him. “It’s alright. We get it. Kevin and I was talking about you, how you beat him.”
“I watched the replay I have. Initially I didn’t picture it for myself.” Alex wolfed down the glass.
Patrons at the ground floor started reacting audibly. All dining virtually stopped, where they froze where they sat, or stood up to witness the scene unfolding outside the doors. Two opposing groups, one dressed in pitch black, the other relatively disorganized in street clothes, elevated their verbal-only arguments into physical skirmishes. Through the air they hurled obscenities at each other, and the restaurant was shocked into a halt.
Two acting as leaders of their respective groups, began shoving and beating the other. One dragged the other by the collar, before the black-shirted man got hold of him, and tossed him through the front door of the establishment, shattering the glass, and sending the room into a frenzy.
“Get him out of here!” A man with features of a typical adult but topped by white hair yelled at the two groups that have formed inside the eatery.
“We just wanted to have dinner!” A mother of three ragingly stomped out of her seat, and kicked the wounded back outside of the boundaries, sliding him off of the colored tiles back into the rough, concrete counterparts outside.
Some staff at the back-end slammed his hand on the red “Barricade” button, forcing a second set of steel doors to close where the glass doors had once formed part of the building’s perimeter.
The entire store was livid, every adult was participating in some way. They were on their feet, yelling back at the absurdity of what is happening beyond the restaurant. Some hurled back obscenities, and children remaining on their seats or atop them, swiftly had their ears shielded by the wrinkled hands of their accompanying elders, if they had any with them.
Every cracked window and skull, was greeted by a shower of tossed items to ward off the gangs. With every throw, the glass weakened and more cracks appeared on panes that lined the sides otherwise not caused by the fights happening outside.
That same man stumbled to a spot near the windows. He takes a metal tray from his own table, and smacked it on one of them standing right outside it. Both clans fuse into one spiritually, every member outside turned against one unified enemy, dragged the poor man out onto the streets, and began to beat him.
The kicks came with it the feeble cries of the wounded and his pleading for help. The restaurant sunk into silence again. Some began to take out their cameras and filmed what had happened at the scene. No one dared to make a single sound. Kevin's film shook and surely enough, the Irvine incident was added to the list of horrific accidents accusing over the past week.
"Get your cameras out of here!" A scream from one of them holding a knife virtually against everyone in the house caused some to drop their cameras in shock. Some sneaked a look at his arms, his numerous tattoos partially obscuring an identical orange mark made on both of his wrists. “Federal spies. Federal spies. All federal spies.”
"That is enough!" An irritated suited man emerged from the further rows back from the window, and drew a pistol at them. A yellow light ran across the sides of the weapon. "Get your dumb shenanigans out of this place and give us back our peace!"
"There are cameras watching, recording." The man with the Bear pin pinned on his lapel proclaimed. "What are you going to do with this little water blaster over there?"
"Cameras are my ally!" He looked at those still brave enough to keep filming. "The name's Bryan Valenta. Date of birth February 12, 2073. You are looking at them right now! You are looking at the source, Americans! You are staring at the abyss of evil! These damn separatists! The Union will be perpetual!”
There began murmurs of people who questioned the authenticity of his speech, and disrupted the scene he wanted.
"Ya see, boy? Ya see?"
Bryan held the trigger and the bullet hit the steel frame, causing a loud metallic clang, and the frame itself to contort and fall off the windowsill.
The blast is what fundamentally scared most in the store. Some are debating amongst themselves whether to tackle Valenta to the ground or not, seeing that he's also likely to be crazy.
Alex and Kevin sneaked a look through the stairs down onto the floor below.
“So this is what it had escalated to, huh? Really fair.” Kevin remarked.
“A lunatic squaring off another pack of wolves. Oddly poetic in some way.”
“We’re walled off now. There’s no way to exit.”
“Clearly Taxis are not an option here. Yes, Irene, we are indeed walled off.” Alex sighed. “Right.”
He tapped in a rather urgent fashion, and within seconds, he was off.
“Yeah, no. Head home, syrup. Yeah, they did talk about it. Absolutely they did.” Kevin rolled his eyes at the out-of-place giggle he produced over the line. “Go home. Make sure you’re safe. Um, yes. I’ll try to come home as soon as I can. Yeah, go home.”
Irene looked at Kevin. Kevin stared back. Both of them nodded.
The sound of sirens started beaming through the air.
“Let’s go, guys.” Alex unimpressively walked down the stairs anyway.
“Not in the middle of—“ Kevin was slightly flabbergasted.
“In the middle of what?” He stared back from the bottom of the stairwell.
“You moron.”
He followed Alex to the bottom, where he began to calmly walk towards the open window, and simply climbed his way through it without much issue. By now, Bearist Scouts, officers, and the press had arrived and there was no real danger for him. Kevin kept his gaze at the Bearist loyalists who tended to anyone in their vicinity with a first-aid kit, so long as they weren’t wearing an American flag on their chest.
Alex was briefly stopped, checked with a small brush-sized that they held up, and after a few seconds, he stopped and looked inside again. One officer heckled him, and he complied, and left again.
"Right. He left. We should go." Irene stood up, and came down the stairs with Kevin.
The crowd dispersed. Valenta was swiftly taken out and held for questioning, then the breathalyzer, then the cuff. So did those nine that stood outside. There's no telling what exactly will happen to them. Perhaps they'll be out rather soon, or they will be taken in for days at a time and not one of them could do anything about it.
The two crossed the high curb and went through the same scans.
